Mad Magazine is celebrating 60 years of quality (?) humor with a wonderful anniversary book
Totally Mad : 60 Years of Humor, Satire Stupidity and Stupidity is 256 pages of reflection on this American Icon of Humor. The brainchild of Bill Gaines Mad Magazine is what came though after his troubles in congress with all his horror comics he published as EC comics company. It has been often imitated but the truth is no one does it better than Mad.
The book is loaded with snippets from issues going way back and interspersed with articles about the folks who created it and worked for the magazine. I really enjoyed the section titled “Was Mad Ever Sued?”. It never occurred to me that people would get angry and sue the Magazine, but of course they did. And Mad won most of the cases. There is also some great bio stuff on Gaines and a section telling of the trips he would take his staff on.
Mad was a big part of my youth and I’ve enjoyed it into adulthood. The movie and television spoofs are second to none and hold up well. I still love the little Sergio Aragonés cartoons on the corner of the pages and Dave Berg is a comic genius. Spy VS Spy still cracks me up and Snappy Answers to Stupid questions still makes me laugh. This is a great collectable to have and it comes with a bonus of 12 prints of iconic mad covers.I smiled the whole time I was reading and this is a book I’ll be picking up and rereading a lot.
The book is published by Time Home Entertainment and you’ll go MAD if you don’t pick one up!
Jon
